Has Our Online Social Experience Improved Our Offline Lives?

“I met my wife online, reconnected with old school friends, stay in touch with my family overseas and have a wide circle of close online friends. For those born in the internet age, this will be the norm. For those born before it, some will adapt, others will fail to adapt.” Jeremy Malcolm

There is little doubt that the social benefits of the internet far outweigh the negatives. Online tools like email and social networking sites offer “low friction” opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people’s lives.

The internet lowers traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and it supports the type of open information sharing that brings people together. Electronic Social Networking is not a new concept at all. People have in one way or another been interacting with each other via some form of ‘social media’ since the 1950′s.

The modernisation of the telephone system in the 50′s and 60′s allowed millions of people to communicate quickly and cost effectively, what we see today has simply grown out of this technology. If we cast our memories back just a few short years - we may shudder when we recall –  faxes as a speedy way to communicate, internet with a ring-tone, email that strolled along slightly faster than faxes, but still less efficient than telephone.

Our digital worlds are now almost entirely linked, Facebook, Twitter, Email, Telephone all available on every digital device in our lives. Have Social Networking Sites improved our lives though?

I think if you look at the history of Electronic Social Networking, your conclusion has to be that anyone who claims to not get it must have been intentionally ignoring it, it’s been here since Telegraph and Morse Code, it’s been a slow steady grower :: Read the full article »»»»